


Ender

by delimeful



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Minecraft, Enderman Virgil, Fluff, Gen, Minecraft
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:28:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26825881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delimeful/pseuds/delimeful
Summary: A series of short, lighthearted Minecraft AU fics.
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil & Creativity | Roman & Logic | Logan & Morality | Patton, Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Morality | Patton Sanders, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders & Morality | Patton Sanders, Logic | Logan Sanders & Morality | Patton Sanders
Comments: 37
Kudos: 239





	1. Shelter

It started on a rainy afternoon. **  
**

Patton was fairly excited about the rain, seeing as there had been a bit of a dry spell recently. His carrots were flourishing now, the smell of damp earth heavy in the air. 

Of course, all good things came with risks. 

The overcast sky meant he wasn’t completely sure how far down the sun was, and how long he had until the night dwellers came sniffing around. His village had a very talented iron golem, of course, but his house was on the outskirts, and his fields stretched even further out of the golem’s range. 

Still, he had his prized hoe, and he wasn’t too shabby with it, either. Even if he was a little after sunset, he would probably be okay. It was worth it, in his opinions, to sit out in nature for a little while longer. 

For a few moments, his only companions were the sound of the rain and Clawdia, the lazy calico cat he had befriended. 

Then, there was the distinct sound of rapid, otherworldly teleporting. Patton jolted upright, but was careful to keep his eyes on the ground. He hadn’t ever been close enough to hear an enderman before, but he’d been warned about looking them in the eyes more times than he could count. 

Endermen were frightening, vengeful creatures, or so the stories went. They howled in eerie pitches if you met their gaze, and the moment you glanced away would be the moment you died. The tales claimed that your only salvation would be seeking the nearest body of water. 

The stories didn’t mention the small, pained sounds the monster was making now, flitting back and forth under the rain and crying out every time it touched ground. It occasionally found refuge under a tree, but even that was short lived with the rainfall steadily increasing.

Patton bit his lip, indecisive, but there was no way he could leave the poor thing out there like that, monster or not. 

He hurriedly built a makeshift shelter from dirt, taller than he would normally make it, and then took a deep breath to steel himself.

“Enderman? ‘Scuse me, can you hear me?” The enderman seemed to linger a moment longer between teleports, and was injured again for its efforts. Patton winced. “Over here! It’s dry!”

He kept his gaze lowered as he heard the echo of teleportation again, this time incredibly close. The pained sounds had stopped, leaving behind an eerie silence. In a twist on the usual, he almost felt as though he was the one who could detect the enderman’s stare. 

“You’re welcome to sit out the rain with me,” Patton offered, proud of the way his voice remained steady. Clawdia crawled into his lap, giving the monster a disdainful glance and then proceeding to ignore it. He patted her gratefully, ignoring the slight watering of his eyes. 

The enderman made a strange, warped sound, but it didn’t sound angry, and it certainly wasn’t a scream. Patton nodded, speaking as he would if it was just him and his cat friend. 

“Yeah, it’s been pretty overcast today, huh?” The enderman remained still, flickers of purple dancing in the corner of Patton’s vision. “I’m sure the sun will be back soon, don’t you worry.” 

He added a few more blocks to their shelter, expanding the haphazard roof so they had more space. The enderman didn’t budge, so Patton didn’t either, only glancing occasionally at its purple glow and void-like body.

The sky darkened, and he scanned the surrounding woods nervously before moving to pile some dirt around them, slowly building an enclosed room. The enderman shifted nervously, and Patton paused.

“I’m just trying to keep any night dwellers from spotting us,” he reassured, eyes cast to the left of the creature’s face. “I won’t bug you, I promise.” 

The uncomfortable static at the edge of his hearing abated slightly, and Patton smiled before closing up the shelter and lighting his lantern. He settled onto the ground, Clawdia curling up on his chest with a rumbling purr. 

Before long, he was dozing in and out of sleep, face tucked into the crook of his elbow so he wouldn’t risk accidentally looking at his temporary roommate. 

At one point, he thought he saw a gangly dark limb carefully reach over and offer a palm to Clawdia, who merely flicked her ears. He quickly fell asleep again and dismissed it as the beginning of dreams. 

After all, he’d never heard of an enderman sitting calmly with a villager before, let alone scratching behind a cat’s ears. 

When he woke, the morning sun had dispersed all the clouds, and his new acquaintance had vanished. 


	2. Spider

For the next few weeks, Patton’s life went on the same as it always had. He tended to his crops, traded for what he needed with passing travelers, and did his part in the nightly patrol around town. 

He didn’t mention the encounter he’d had to the others in the village– there was no reason to worry them, and for all intents and purposes, his shelter buddy had vanished. 

Just in case the enderman was shy, he’d even looked a little further than recommended on his patrols, to the exasperation of Clawdia. The cat was much more relaxed than some of the other strays Patton had taken to feeding, but even she didn’t like wandering into the forest after dark. 

It was no use. He sometimes felt as though there were eyes on him, but that was the extent of it. 

At least, until he got himself into trouble again.

He hadn’t intended to, really! He’d just… heard a few rumors from those traveling between villages, ones about a ruined structure visible in the distance from the path. The description of it sounded kinda like the otherworldly humming portal Logan had once showed him, and he was pretty sure there might be a chest near it. 

His plan was simple. Search around for the ruins, check chests for any possible potions ingredients for his friend, leave some food in a chest for any other passing travelers who might need provisions, and then hurry on home. Easy peasy! 

Of course, instead, he’d managed to get himself good and truly lost, and now the sun was setting and he _still_ seemed to be going in circles. He was carrying Clawdia in his arms, having brought the cat to scare off any creepers. 

Behind him, there was a hiss that was very un-catlike, and Patton instantly felt a chill run down his spine. The scurrying of many gross, hairy legs only confirmed his suspicions, and he turned to see a giant spider only a few blocks away. 

Fear paralyzed him, leaving him to stare at the approaching monster with wide, teary eyes. He’d only ever seen the creepy crawly death-dealers from a distance during the day, and now one was glaring at him with all those beady little red eyes, and clicking and hissing, and _oh no he was going to die here–_

With a petulant yowl, Clawdia used Patton’s chest as a springboard to jump away onto the ground, the pain of her claws snapping Patton out of his fearful trance. He cried out and ducked as the spider lunged, rising and turning on his heel to sprint. 

The sound of hairy legs scuttling behind him only seemed to grow closer and closer, no matter how hard he sprinted. He cast a look over his shoulder to see those glittering eyes terrifyingly close–

His next step was out into thin air, and he realized too late that he’d reached the top of a small hill. 

The next few moments, all he could see were dizzying flashes of the night sky and the ground he was tumbling down.

Patton’s descent was halted by a tree at the base of the hill, which he slammed into with a painful thump. He could still hear the creepy pitter-patter of too-many legs advancing, but despite his best efforts to continue fleeing, he remained slumped against the base of the tree. It was like he couldn’t catch his breath, and his limbs all felt strangely numb. That probably wasn’t good. 

His vision focused just in time to see the spider rear back to lunge at him, and then– 

There was a flare of eye-searing purple, and when Patton blinked the afterimage away from his eyes, he could see an enderman– no. _His_ enderman, standing between him and the spider, emanating an angry, static-filled keen that made the hair on the back of Patton’s neck rise.

The spider hissed indignantly, legs spread out aggressively, and Patton half-expected the enderman to start swinging. Instead, it seemed to stiffen and loom, straightening its spine until it was somehow even taller than before. The keening noise lowered in pitch, becoming deep and echoing and furious. 

Finally seeing how outmatched it was, the spider skittered away. Patton had just enough time to be incredibly relieved, and then his vision faded to black as the adrenaline drained away.

—

When Patton woke up, it was to the smell of home and a cold weight over his eyes. 

He reached up to the strange, clammy thing on his face, wondering if he’d simply dreamed up the terrifying evening. As soon as he touched it, though, it twitched in an unmistakably _alive_ sort of way. 

There was a small, warped sound, closer than he’d ever heard the enderman before, and Patton abruptly realized that it was the creature’s hand that currently obscured his vision.

“Um, hello?” he said, lowering his own hands back to his lap. “It’s okay, I promise not to look at you, kiddo.” 

There was a distorted moan, almost worried-sounding, and then those strange, long fingers pulled away. Patton cracked his eyes open and winced as his headache swiftly made itself known in the morning light. His whole body felt pretty banged up, actually. 

True to his word, he looked carefully at the enderman’s legs rather than risk meeting its gaze. He could see the cute blue carpet of his house under its feet, the chest of spare seedlings at his bedside. Even with all the bumps and bruises he’d collected, he really was home safe now, which meant… 

“You saved me,” he said, awed. “You scared off the spider and brought me all the way home?” 

The enderman shuffled and “ _vwoop_ ”’d quietly, teleporting a block over antsily as though avoiding the praise. Patton couldn’t help but smile. 

“Y’know what? I think this means we’re friends.” He held a hand out. “I’m Patton, your friendly neighborhood farmer!” 

The enderman set his hand against Patton’s hesitantly, and made a few more of those echoing noises. Patton stalwartly refused to be discouraged. 

“You’re kinda shy, huh, kiddo? How about I give you a nickname?” He held his other hand in a fist under his chin, deep in thought. In front of him, the enderman continued to shuffle around anxiously, as though he couldn’t bear to stay in place. 

“Hmm… How about Firefly?” A negative sounding hum. “Shadow? Jitters? Anxiety?”

The enderman’s fingers tightened slightly around Patton’s hand. “Anxiety? Alright, that fits pretty well!” 

Patton grinned brightly. “Well, nice to meet you, Anxiety!”

It might have simply been his imagination, but it almost seemed like the enderman crooned a greeting right back.


	3. Brewer

Logan was becoming suspicious, as of late.

Patton’s strange behavior had started innocuously enough. Logan himself had commented on how cramped the man’s house was with all those stray cats he kept inviting in, so it wasn’t that strange that he’d decided to move to a larger house.

What _was_ strange was that Patton– who thrived among friends– would move to a house on the outskirts of the village, one that was a fair distance away from the iron golem Logan had crafted as well. Stranger still was his insistence on remodeling it to have a higher ceiling, despite the fact that he seemed to have no intention of incorporating a second floor.

That said, those elements alone weren’t indicative of anything dangerous. All of it could have been excused as simply Patton being Patton, were it not for the most unsettling behavior of all: repeatedly vanishing into the woods for long stretches of the day.

Logan had felt the first stirrings of panic when he first stopped by the village and found that there was no trace of Patton in either house or fields. When his old friend had returned unharmed, he’d been more relieved than curious, assuming that he’d simply gotten turned around in the forest for a bit.

The second time this occurred, he wasn’t as certain.

See, Logan only visited the village a few times a week, mostly preferring to stay in his small, isolated home to work on his experiments. It helped keep the other villagers from growing uneasy at his presence as well.

That Patton would be missing during multiple visits implied that this was a regular occurrence, and asking around seemed to confirm Logan’s suspicions. The other residents of the small village didn’t mind his wandering, so long as he continued to pull his weight as a farmer. Patton was technically the first resident of this village, and he’d done more than his fair share of helping out others, so there wasn’t a negative word to be said about him.

The man in question avoided questions on the matter, which he really should have known would only make Logan more curious about this behavior. So, he decided to do a little investigating of his own.

That was how he found himself here, trailing after Patton as the man ambled through the woods, seemingly without a care in the world. He’d just begun to believe that perhaps this was simply a new routine (and felt a little embarrassed about his speculations) when Patton came to an abrupt stop, and pulled a strip of fabric out of his pocket.

He proceeded to blindfold himself. Logan stared, confused beyond belief and more than a little worried. If it was Roman, the act could have been justified as training– many of the monsters that roamed the land made distinctive noises, and so honing his hearing would serve him well.

But this was Patton, who would cry if he saw a fox attack a chicken. He wasn’t the type to go out hunting monsters. At this rate, it was more likely that monsters would be hunting _him_.

As though summoned by his thoughts, there was a low, electric hum in the air, and between one blink and the next, an enderman appeared. The creature’s silhouette was dark and looming, limbs long and clawed, purple afterimages around it.

It was also looking directly at Patton, the way Logan had only ever seen enderman act when they were on the brink of attacking. His heartbeat seemed to multiply tenfold, and he took a step forward, mentally cataloguing all the potions he had on hand as protectiveness swelled in him–

“Good morning, kiddo!”

Logan went still as Patton reached up, letting his hand hang in the air, and then–

And then the enderman placed its hand against Patton’s, making its characteristic warped noises before teleporting back and forth in place. Patton grinned, still sightless behind the blindfold.

“Okay, is it hide and seek again today?”

The enderman made two low noises, which Patton seemed to take as assent, because he began to count down. The monster teleported around Patton for a moment before striding away into the forest.

Logan watched from a distance, disbelieving, as for the next half hour, the two of them ‘played’ together. There was no denying that the enderman was an active participant. It would often teleport or coo when Patton was nearby, the noise giving away its position, and always eventually let Patton reach out and find it, ‘winning’ each round.

There were a couple close calls where Patton almost stepped into a body of water or got too close to plains where creepers resided, but the enderman always guided him away, directly or indirectly, regardless of the game. It certainly explained how Patton had survived this long on these excursions.

It explained nothing about the creature itself, though, and so when Logan finally got too close and was spotted by those unearthly purple eyes, he was careful not to meet its gaze. Some elements of his physiology had changed since he’d been struck by lightning all those years ago, but just because creepers ignored him didn’t mean enderman would. He wasn’t going to risk agitating such a unique specimen– particularly not since it was Patton’s friend.

The enderman teleported behind Patton, making the farmer jump slightly. “Anxiety? Is something wrong?”

It chirped but didn’t look away from Logan, assessing him carefully as Patton reached up and tugged his blindfold down slightly. He was careful not to look behind him, and ‘Anxiety’ remained firmly out of peripheral vision in return.

“Logan!” Patton gasped, looking guilty and surprised. “Oh my goodness, did you follow me all the way out here?”

“I was… curious,” he admitted, “and it looks like I was right to be.”

Patton stiffened, spreading his arms slightly as though he could possibly hide the enderman’s lanky frame behind him. “He’s not dangerous, Lo, I promise!”

Logan felt the strangest sense of deja vu. Patton had used nearly the same exact phrasing about _him_ while he was defending Logan to the villagers in town. His friend had always been the first to see the good in others.

“I believe you, and anyhow, I’ve observed that much for myself,” he said soothingly, raising his empty hands. “I’m not upset, only intrigued. I’ve never seen an enderman behave the way this one does.”

Patton relaxed, offering Logan a relieved smile. He reached behind him to match palms with the enderman again. “It’s okay, Anxiety. Logan is my friend, he won’t do anything to hurt you.”

Logan nodded in confirmation, remaining still as the enderman curiously teleported a bit closer to look him over. It– or rather, he– seemed to be just as curious about Logan as Logan was about him. He wondered if it was because he was a ‘witch’, or if any villager friend of Patton’s would garner this response.

The stray thought made him pause, a new worry occurring to him. “You may want to be careful making promises about friends, Patton. This sort of thing won’t stay secret for long, and I expect Roman’s response to the situation may not be as calm and composed as mine.”

Going by Patton’s answering groan, he agreed.


	4. Adventurer

Roman paused, studying the small house in front of him.

He glanced to the nearby courtyard. This was definitely the same house he’d visited last time he was in the village, but…

No flower pots, no colorful banners on the roof, and when he peeked in through a window, the painting of cats he’d made for his friend was no longer hung up on the wall.

“Did Patton move?” he mused aloud, and then felt a stirring of nervousness in his gut.

It had been a while since his previous visit, since he hadn’t noticed any increased swarm activity heading in this direction. He hadn’t thought there was anything to worry about. Logan had personally promised him that the village would be protected, but it only took one slip-up…

He ducked under the arm of the passing iron golem, and approached one of the nearby villagers. “About our dearest Patton…”

Thankfully, the blacksmith responded with a friendly smile, rather than a mournful expression. Roman felt some of the tension ease out of him as the woman explained that Patton had simply moved to a new home on the outskirts and even gave him directions. He didn’t protest; without a map handy, he was exceedingly liable to get turned around. 

Finally, he found Patton’s new house, complete with all the trinkets and planters he expected. He frowned in thought, tilting his head slightly. Why would Patton move so far away from the village center? His old home was cozy and well-worn, and this new place would be much more vulnerable, living out of the iron golem’s patrol range.

Things to ask his friend directly, he supposed. With that, he pushed the door open, announcing his presence brightly.

In the corner of the room, a shadowy figure loomed, violet energy flaring in alarm at his arrival.

Years of monster slaying instincts kicked in before anything else, and Roman’s gaze automatically dropped to his feet. In the same moment, his heart jumped to his throat.

Why was there an _enderman_ in Patton’s _house?_

“Why are you _here?_ ” Roman shrieked, mostly to himself, groping for the hilt of his sword.

The enderman made a small, warped sound and teleported back and forth in the house a few times. It wasn’t aggressive, and there was no evidence that Patton had been attacked by it, which were the only things stilling his hand at the moment.

That, and he _really_ didn’t want to trash Patton’s new house.

Despite all the spooky superstitions about endermen, they weren’t often a mob Roman had to fight. Normally, they kept to themselves, occasionally stole some crops or took a chunk from someone’s wall before moving on.

They definitely weren’t known for appearing and loitering inside people’s homes. Most one-person houses were made with a low roof to prevent such things anyhow!

He frowned at the enderman’s legs, ignoring the otherworldly chirping it made. This would be easier if the creature had attacked him first.

“Get out of here,” he told it sternly, waving his free hand to emphasize his tone. “You don’t belong in here, you’re going to scare the daylight out of somebody if you stay.”

The enderman, as expected, shuffled in place and stubbornly continued to exist in his best friend’s house. Roman resisted the urge to run an exasperated hand through his hair. How was this his life? He stopped by his friends’ village for a break from questing and monsters, for thunder’s sake!

Abruptly, there was another teleportation noise, and this one was _far_ too close for comfort. Roman resisted the urge to look up. His knuckles went white where they gripped his sword’s hilt.

A flower was thrust under his nose.

“Wha–?” He sneezed, three times, rapidfire. The enderman chirped at him, and he could almost imagine it sounded like worry.

It was still holding the flower (a single poppy) out carefully.

Roman took it, bemused, and then tried not to lose his marbles as the enderman teleported rapidly, circling around him over and over like an excited honey bee before settling back by the table.

“No, _no_ , this curiously adorable gesture doesn’t mean you can stay,” Roman started, pointing the poppy at the monster accusingly. “Did you steal this from one of Patton’s boxes? Hey, I’m serious here! I’ll have you know I’m a renowned monster slayer. You should be terrified.”

The enderman ‘vrrp’ed, unimpressed.

Before Roman could continue arguing his case to a creature that probably had no idea what he was even saying, the door swung open again.

“We’re back!” Patton’s familiar voice cheered.

Roman, who had possibly gotten a little caught up and forgotten who actually lived here, whirled around with a panicked yelp and lunged, haphazardly smacking his hand over Patton’s eyes. “Don’t look!”

The enderman teleported directly behind him, its warning buzz in the air enough to make him break out in goosebumps. There was a loud sigh.

“Hello, Roman,” Logan greeted him mildly from where he was standing behind Patton, arms full of bags of fertilizer. “I see you’ve met Anxiety.”

“ _Anxiety?_ ” Roman asked, his voice several octaves higher than his normal range. It maybe possibly had something to do with the enderman breathing down his neck.

“Hoo boy,” Patton muttered from where Roman’s hand was still splayed over his entire face. Then, at another one of the enderman’s little noises, he tensed. “No, no, it’s okay buddy, he’s a friend!”

“A friend?” Roman asked, and then realized that Patton wasn’t talking to him at all as the enderman buzz-clicked and moved away slightly. “Wait, you _knew_ it was in here? Did you _befriend_ a _whole monster_ while I was gone?”

“Hey, he’s not a monster,” Patton protested, moving Roman’s hand up to frown more effectively at him.

“That’s a yes,” Logan added, moving into the living area to set the bags down. “Pardon, Anxiety.” The enderman obligingly shuffled out of the way.

Roman threw his hands up, overcome. “Hang on, absolutely not. Logan was one thing, but this, _this cannot stand!_ ”

Patton crossed his arms stubbornly, frown only growing more severe. “Anxiety hasn’t done anything wrong. We had this argument about Logan, too, and we both know how that turned out.”

“Come on, I said I was sorry about accusing him of malignant witchcraft!”

“At _swordpoint._ ”

“At swordpoint!” Roman corrected exasperatedly. “I still apologized, right Logan?”

“Would you really like me to get involved in this debate?” Logan asked, raising a sharp eyebrow. Roman wilted. “I thought as much.”

The witch turned back to his task, expertly re-potting a few odd-looking plants. The enderman lurked behind him in a manner that was liable to give Roman a stress ulcer. Several stress ulcers, even.

Roman took a deep breath, pressing his hands to his face, and then pulled back slightly at the feeling of something sticky.

He was still holding the poppy ‘Anxiety’ had given him. Sap was weeping from the parts he’d clutched a little too tightly. He loosened his grip slightly.

The enderman hadn’t done anything even remotely harmful yet. Was he really going to make the same exact mistake he’d made with Logan?

His shoulders slumped, and carefully tucked the flower into his lapel before pulling out a chair and flopping into it dramatically. 

“Fine. Fine! Tell me _everything._ I promise I’ll listen.”


	5. Healer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: feeling trapped, vague experimentation, pain
> 
> fifth part of my minecraft au! for this chapter, we jump back to the past! to a first meeting :)

  


Patton had been walking for a long, long time.

He wasn’t sure where, or why. When he tried to recall, his thoughts would slip out of reach like sand through his fingers. The world was blurry and indistinct, and no matter how long he wandered in the dark, nothing grew any clearer.

The light burned, and the water drowned, and he walked.

Occasionally, a creature that was different would appear, and he would amble along after it with a single minded focus. He’d never caught whatever it was, despite the frantic urging in the back of his mind. He wasn’t sure what he would do if he did catch one, and that scared him as much as he could be scared, these days.

Perhaps he was right to be scared, because the next time he found one, it threw something at him!

The glass-shatter impact didn’t exactly hurt, but then there was a wetness left behind, and his limbs abruptly felt heavy and slow. The creature easily stayed out of range, but oddly enough, it didn’t leave.

No, it made sound after sound at him, staying close enough to draw him after it for much longer than any other he’d encountered.

And then, quite suddenly, he didn’t have space to walk anymore.

It took him a few moments to understand what had happened. There were cold metal walls around him, trapping him in a cell barely big enough to pace in.

He didn’t like it, the smallness. He didn’t like the way the strange creature came back again and again, close enough to make his mind turn to that strange violent urge. He especially didn’t like the creature’s glass-and-wet creations, and all the feelings that came with them.

… It was new, remembering things long enough to dislike them.

Over time, the creature’s voice became familiar, too. It would often chirp in excitement or groan in frustration. Sometimes, after a glass-and-wet test went wrong, it would come closer than usual and mumble in a way that made Patton’s chest twinge oddly.

The creature was particularly excited today, making those noises nonstop as it flitted about on the other side of the bars. It hummed the little tune that meant it was going to use a glass-and-wet, and Patton was surprised to find that he remembered this one, the way it made his balance go wobbly.

Unlike before, something cold and unfamiliar was pressed against his mouth. At the creature’s insistence, he consumed it, and immediately regretted as a sudden burning spread through him from the inside-out, as though he'd swallowed the sun itself.

Hours or days passed in a slow, roasting agony, and then, finally, it was over.

When Patton came back to consciousness, he was laying down, and everything was dark and numb. Not quite the dark of night, though.

There was a shuffle nearby, and he turned his head to the sound. He couldn't move very much.

“Ah. It seems you’re awake.” A presence settled at his side as he slowly processed the words. “Can you tap your pointer finger twice for me? It is alright if it takes some time.”

It took longer than expected to remember where his hand was, and longer still to force the space where his fingers should be into feeling. The taps ended up being more like small flickers, but there was a sense of accomplishment nonetheless.

“You—!” The presence cut off sharply, a sudden tension in their words. “Please, could you repeat that action? Two taps, no more or less.”

Patton’s brow wrinkled slightly in focus, the motions coming easier.

_Tap. Tap._

There was a ragged inhale, their voice suddenly wavering. “How about three taps?”

Exhaustion was pulling at him, but he thought the voice was familiar, and desperate, and so he managed three taps, almost on an even rhythm.

“It worked.” A warm hand gently settled over his. “It worked! I did it, you can— you can hear me. You can _understand_ me.”

There was something distressing about the hitch in their voice, but Patton was settling back into heavy sleep, and he only managed to twitch his hand under theirs before going under once more.

-

There were more tests, every time he woke.

Some of them were easy! He would shuffle his feet, count out taps, figure out which limb gentle pressure was being applied to. Over time, feeling came back to his numb flesh, and movement became more and more frequent.

Some of them were more difficult. He’d lose time trying to form complex sentences, feel consumed by sudden fits of claustrophobia, shy away from the sensation of the sun’s heat. He couldn’t respond to even a single question about his past, and day by day, his memories of his time as… not-so-human faded away as well.

Through it all, the stranger who had introduced himself as Logan was at his side, giving him clear instructions and careful support on every task.

He’d learned a lot about the type of person Logan was, day by day. He talked to himself a lot, sometimes clear and sometimes dipping into a thoughtful mutter. It seemed like he’d been alone for a long time. He’d often make a noise of startlement when Patton responded to his rambling, be it through a tap or a simple hum. He always told Patton what he was doing before he touched him, and explained what he was trying to learn when he ran the tests. He kept odd hours but never let himself sound tired.

Patton knew a lot about Logan, but he still didn’t know what Logan looked like. He’d been wearing the blindfold since he’d first woken up out of the cage, and it was the only restraint-- if a strip of cloth over his eyes could be called that-- to remain after all these days. It was the one thing Logan hadn’t explained.

Physically, Patton felt stronger by the day. Emotionally, he wasn’t sure where he would go or what he would do when the tests stopped being necessary. He trusted Logan, though, and more than that, he wanted to help him, after all that he’d gone through for Patton.

He wasn’t quite sure if that trust went both ways, though. Not yet.

“Logan?” he asked, shuffling his shoulders up the headboard of his bed so that he was closer to sitting upright. He reached up to touch the blindfold. “This... off?”

Across the room, the familiar sound of Logan flipping through a book cut off sharply. There was a long moment of silence.

“At your current level of motor skills, yes, you could,” Logan finally settled on, words carefully measured and even. “However, while you are staying with me, I would prefer it if… if you didn’t.”

“Why?” Patton pressed.

Another pause. “I believe that if you see me, you might become… alarmed. And I have no wish to upset or frighten you, particularly while you’re still recovering.”

“Logan,” Patton said, both concerned and a little exasperated. “Not scary. Want this... off. Help?”

“... Very well.” Logan’s voice went stiff as he moved to sit next to Patton, and when his hands carefully unknotted the blindfold, they were rigid like he was tensing for a blow. His cold demeanor was somewhat undercut by the way he automatically moved his arm to keep the day’s light from blinding Patton.

After a few blinks to adjust, the first thing that came into focus was Logan’s hand, carefully loose at his side, and the white, jagged scar lines that marked it. A witch mark, clear as anything.

The next thing he saw was Logan’s face, jaw set harshly and eyes focused on him as though waiting for the inevitable reaction. He could have hidden the mark away, but he was baring it for the world to see, even though he was sure it would be rejected. His loneliness made a lot more sense, suddenly. Patton felt a fond smile pull at his lips as he reached a shaky hand out in greeting.

“Hi, Logan.” The familiar warmth and gentleness of that hand washed away any lingering doubts about his new, not-entirely-human friend. “Still not... scary.”

Logan’s face flickered through a few strange expressions, and wasn’t that going to be interesting, learning a whole new set of tells for him? When he spoke, there was a strange, distantly familiar tremble to his words. “You may be the only one who thinks so.”

Patton frowned at him, squeezing his friend’s hand a little tighter before a flicker of motion on the windowsill caught his eye. A high pitched noise erupted from him completely involuntarily. _“Cat!”_

The cat in question, a little creature with sleek black fur, eyed him curiously. Logan cleared his throat, reaching out his free hand. The kitty leapt down and ambled over to butt her head into the hand like they were two magnets. “Ah, yes. This is my familiar. Her name is Glowstone.”

The excitement was too much. Patton had to take a moment to compose himself, words tripping over each other and becoming garbled nonsense. He watched with a grin as Glowstone settled gently in her witch’s lap. “Two!”

“Sorry?” Logan asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Two friends,” Patton told him, gesturing quite seriously between him and the golden-eyed cat. “A good start.”

Logan shook his head, unable to hide the little amused upturn to his lips. “If you say so.”

He did say so. And if Patton had his way, there’d be many more friends to come.


End file.
